


Castle of the Mermaids

by go_Jean_or_go_home



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, F/M, Happy Ending tho, IT GETS BLOODY RIGHT OFF THE BAT, M/M, Part of your wooooooooooooooorld, Pirate AU, TAKE THE VIOLENCE TAG SERIOUSLY, Wokou Pirate au, Wokou pirate! Mikasa, mermaid au, merman au, merman! Jean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 22:54:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14861861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/go_Jean_or_go_home/pseuds/go_Jean_or_go_home
Summary: The year is 1550; the Renaissance is alive and kicking in Europe, the indigenous peoples of the Americas are being slowly massacred, and in the East China sea, Wokou pirates run rampant through the waters, plundering for any and all riches they can get a hold of.Mikasa Ackerman is one of the most well-known and sought after Wokou pirates, with a reputation of apathetic brutality, unprecedented strength, and being one of the few woman captains. In addition to this, her crew has been dubbed the "family of misfits", so she has her fair share of bar fights and swashbuckling in the name of defending her crew.One day, during a battle that should've been easy, she is knocked off the boat and sent flying into the raging waves, only to be saved by a mythical creature of legend, who is actually way more human than expected. He stutters and blushes in her presence, what's up with that? How will Mikasa ever navigate all of this?





	Castle of the Mermaids

**Author's Note:**

> HHHMMMMMMMMM I had the idea of this way the fuck back and out of fucking no where lmao but the Jeankasa fandom needs some love! I'm aiming for maybe three chapters of this, and the first one I just finished lol. I'm not sure about an update schedule, other than "I'll finish it eventually".*
> 
> If you have any ideas for scenes or lines or anything in general, please leave comments! I have a general idea of the story, but I'm gonna need a lot of filler to tie those big events together lol.
> 
> Please enjoy!
> 
> *[EDIT Feb 22, 2019] I have decided to leave this as an unfinished oneshot.

A deafening _BOOM_ erupts from a cannonball as it is shot out in a blinding, bright puff of powder. It crashes through the red, intricately detailed wooden railing halfway down the length of a ship, and lodges itself in the wooden floorboards on deck, still steaming and scorching hot. Since the cannonballs of these times are filled with gunpowder and poisonous chemicals, the iron sphere explodes after a few seconds, sending out a small cloud of toxic smoke into the windy air.

Men, women, and other individuals shout from the damaged ship, voices harsh and spittle flying from their lips as they rush to avoid the smoke, loosen ropes, and reload cannons of their own. The two ships are both open decks, unlike the turtle ships that are so fashionable now, which is wonderful for the crew currently readying their counter, for they excel in ship-boarding combat.

“Fire!” Someone screams, and all eight cannons — from the level just below — spit out their iron balls at the Wokou ship racing alongside them. Four hit the walls of the neighboring ship and no doubt crash into the floorboards there, while two land on the top deck, and two miss the stern entirely. The six successful cannonballs explode one after the other, causing the enemy crew to let out agonized cries of pain, both from top and lower deck. The firing crew cheers and whoops, but the fight is far from finished, no, it’s only just started.

The captain of the long, narrow ship — the Māmeido no Shiro or the Castle of the Mermaids, which was actually a Ming Navy ship her parents had managed to steal — calls for another crew member to take over the wheel, as she steps down from the quarter deck and joins her crew on the main. They cheer as she approaches, and draw their swords and guns when she draws her own gun, but keeps her Nagamaki sheathed. Planting one black-booted foot onto the railing and wrapping a thick, rough, off-white rope several times around her armor-plated forearm, Mikasa turns to face all fifty-five of her sweaty, grinning, and eager marine crew.

She raises her Arquebus pistol to the sky. The bright, February sun glints off of its shiny metal bits, and her shoulder-length raven hair whips around wildly in the chilly wind, along with her blood red coattails. In the old Japanese of the time, she bellows, “We will break into the Red Crane! Let this day be their last!”

Her crew erupts into proud responding cries of their own, many in their respective native languages.

“Para Portugal!”

“Osmanlıyı ve Ming'i Lanetleyin!”

“Para mi familia!”

“Yǒngyuǎn de wò kǒu!”

With that, Mikasa kicks off the ship — her ship — and flies through the air toward their ongoing enemy Wokou ship, the Red Crane. Two men of the enemy crew have their swords drawn and ready to cut her upon landing, but she lowers her gun and shoots them both while she swings in between the ships. Mikasa can hear the war cries of her crew following her lead as she lands in a crouch on the enemy railing. She looks up at the grimy, snarling enemy faces before her, festering in every nook and cranny of this ship, and knows she would’ve smirked in this moment if she didn’t have her intimidating, nonchalant reputation to uphold.

 _‘This will be fun.’_ She thinks smugly.

Three men rush her, clearly aiming to shove her off the railing and into the raging, choppy waves below, but Mikasa quickly stands and easily evades their sword blows, dancing down the red, wooden railing with perfect balance, towards the stern of the ship. Finally, she aims her gun downwards and shoots at the next pair of arms to reach out for her, feeling prideful at the _shunk_ and _squish_ of the bullets hitting their target, and the sharp, anguished cry that’s let out. As she jumps from her perch on the railing to the quarter deck where the captain and his first mate are standing by the wheel, enraged yet fearful, she finally draws her Nagamaki and gives her wrist a twirl with it, just for show.

She probably shouldn’t be this cocky, but who was there to tell her not to? This battle was practically already won; the second the Red Crane thought they could come into Nanjing — China’s current capitol — while her crew was already raiding and take all they had already captured, they had already won. This wasn’t the first time the Red Crane had tried to steal from the Castle of the Mermaids’ ship, but Mikasa felt confident this would definitely be their eagerly-awaited, final encounter grand finale.

As the sound of her fifty-something rowdy Wokou pirates crashing and barreling onto the main deck rang out behind her, the captain and his first mate draw their guns and swords, and lunge for Mikasa. Bullets could easily blast through the armor all three pirates are wearing — chest, thigh, calf, forearm and shoulder plates of bamboo and leather, Mikasa being the only one not wearing a clunky samurai helmet, for she was renowned for going into battle with her head unprotected — but not if Mikasa could deflect their trajectory with her sword first, as she already was doing.

She dodges around the captain and nears the first mate, who lashes out nervously with his own, shorter sword, but she speedily side-steps, ducks, and weaves around his swipes. She’s on a bit of a time crunch, because while they were long, long gone from Nanjing, they were approaching the Ryukyu Islands, their land home, so they ought to finish this quick before the Red Crane can realize that and make plans to come back. She quickly kicks the approaching captain in the gut with the bottom of her foot, sending him back _hard_ against the railing where he’ll no doubt need a minute to recover, and begins clashing her sword with the first mate's. _Cling, clang, clack_ , they go back and forth, blocking opposing strikes while making countering attacks of their own, sometimes aiming for vitals, sometimes at limbs. Finally, after _months_ of doing this same dance with this guy — she knows his fighting style by now as he does hers — she finds an opening and slashes her Nagamaki clean through his wrist, the one that’s holding the gun.

The first mate drops his sword and sinks to his knees, sobbing and screeching in pain, clutching his profusely squirting and bleeding stump. Mikasa kicks his limp, severed hand and gun off of the quarter deck, sending both objects rolling into the crowd of clashing crews — Red Crane on Castle of the Mermaids.

“You monster! You— you _savage_!” The captain spits lowly, having recovered, raising his own Arquebus and pointing it at Mikasa’s head. She squats down and aims hers right back at him, in between the eyes, while keeping her sword ready by her thigh, letting the glistening red blood drip off of the blade and onto the wood below. There are a few stray drops that splattered against her face, but she can't be bothered to wipe them away now.

“You think you’re invincible— that you can’t be beaten! _Hah_!” He mocks her, as the wind kicks up again and punches out the sails. Both ships are still going full speed, as cannonballs fire back and forth ceaselessly at each other and the two crews shoot, scratch, and slash one another below. Mikasa hopes her ship hasn’t taken too much damage, though repair costs are the least of her worries.

The captain is still babbling. “Your parents— they thought the same thing, ey? And how’d _they_ turn up? _Huh_ ? You’re not unbeatable… you’re just as low— as low and human as the _rest_ of us! Except you— a dirty woman like you shouldn’t be in a place like this. No, a _woman_ like you should know her place and not follow in the footsteps of a _bitch_ like your mothe—”

Mikasa charges him, not because the captain’s words hit a nerve, for she’s grown used to these kinds of insults being thrown at her. If she were to be honest, this was bland compared to some of the slander she’s stood silent against. No, she charges because the captain’s frantic, anxious rambling left him open and distracted to her blows.

She aims to slice right up through his abdomen in a wide, round blow. The captain frantically fires his pistol at her, but his aim is shaky and unstable, so the bullets whizz past her and instead create holes in the floorboards. He scrambles away from the railing just in time as her Nagamaki hacks into the wood, and slashes clean through it.

Mikasa doesn’t think anything of the damaged railing, and turns away from the sight of her own, elegant ship to face the captain again, with her sword held out, diagonally across the front of her body. He’s readied his own sword again, but still raises his gun at her.

“That’s right! You’re just a— just a dirty thief like all of us! And you’ll never be anything be more than that!” The captain shouts over the chilly wind, as a large cloud momentarily blocks out the sun and casts them into shade.

“Good thing I don’t wanna be, then.” Mikasa replies cooly, unlike his incessant shouting.

He licks his cracked, bleeding lips and sneers. “Such a shame. A pretty thing like you could’ve been _so_ much—”

She rushes forward once again, and _chops_ off his hand too, sending it, and his gun sailing off the end of the boat and into the blustering tides bellow. Then, before he can even process what’s happened to him, Mikasa swiftly aims her father’s Arquebus in between his eyes and pulls the trigger with her forefinger.

 _Bchow!_ Comes the deafening noise of the bullet exploding from the end of her gun. The captain’s eyes widen, as dark red blood starts to trickle down the bridge of his nose. His lips are parted around a tiny, miniscule squeal that goes unheard over the sound of crashing waves and angry, blistering wind. His sword falls from his fingers, clattering onto the blood-splattered floorboards as he sinks to his knees, and finally, flumps forward with a _CRACK_ as his head hits the floor.

The steaming column of smoke promptly gets blown away from the end of Mikasa’s gun. She breathes out slowly to calm down the adrenaline pumping through her veins. Glaring down at the limp, open-eyed body before her, she spits on him in disgust. “Good riddance, pig.” The large clump of clouds in the sky finally get blown aside, revealing the sun once again.

This whole time, the wheel has been spinning erratically, with nothing to control it except the rudder being pushed around by the current. Mikasa spares a look across the way, and spots Armin by the wheel, furiously fighting to keep the Castle of the Mermaids aligned with the Red Crane, and Mikasa internally commends him for his diligence. The whole crew will be able to lounge and laze about once this haul is finished with.

She turns to the sea of hostile, battling Wokou pirates — good God, Eren’s throat is going to be sore for _days_ with how much he’s screaming — and is about to open her mouth and announce to the Red Crane that their captain is dead, and they now have the option of either joining her crew and ship, or burning alive on this one, when she spots movement out of her periphery.

Mikasa looks just in time to see the first mate has hastily crawled over to the nearest mast, and just as she makes eye contact with his scowling, tear-streaked face, he yanks loose with his one, remaining hand the rope tying down the enormous sail. Before she can duck or move or even react, the wind violently swings it around, and the lowest wooden beam _slams_ into her head. Mikasa stumbles backwards capriciously as her vision instantly goes fuzzy, dropping her weapons. She can hear Eren screaming, Armin screaming, the first mate screaming, but just as black, blobby objects start spinning across her view, she falls right into the bit of railing she sliced through earlier, and it snaps and splinters under her weight and force, sending her plunging down, down, down off the boat as she finally blacks out.

 

**< ><   <>< <><   <>< <><**

 

“But papaaaaaaaa!” Wailed a toddler from somewhere behind Jean, her irksome whines blaring out through the waters so that everyone within a hundred mile radius could hear. “Pleeeeaaaaaase! I’m tirrrrrrrrred!” The child sobbed, and Jean had a hunch she was probably clinging to her papa’s arm or shoulder like a leech so she could yowl right into his ear.

“Saqui, _enough_.” Came the papa’s voice, cold and stern. He, his wife and their daughter Saqui were a family that had joined the pod only recently. During this very migration, in fact, back when the whole group had rounded the Southeastern tip of the landmass humans were calling “America”.

Jean scowled and clenched his teeth to hold back a groan, as more whines and cries of other children around him mimicked Saqui’s; they’d been swimming for a while, so it was no surprise that all the youngsters of the pod would start getting worn out and antsy now, but even still. He was _never_ having kids.

The whole pod collectively slowed to a stop as adults and elders agreed that the continental shelf they were currently skirting along was a suitable place for a few hours of rest. They were at the very top of the cliff, where the seafloor sharply dropped down into eerie darkness. Every merperson grew up hearing stories about the monstrosities that lurked in the pitch black gloom of the deep sea, and thus, as a rule of thumb, no one ever went down there. Besides, there was a limit to how much cold a merperson could take.

The sandy seafloor at the top of the shelf where the whole pod had stopped was cool and soft, and a large, seemingly endless field of eelgrass grew just a few yards away from the ledge. There were at least two massive mounds of coral sitting a ways into the grass from what Jean could see, and they were undoubtedly home to many fish and sea animals that would soon become victims to snack time. As all the children miraculously found themselves full of energy once again and sped off to play in the gently swaying reeds, the older mermaids of the pod sat down at the edge of the field to rest and talk amongst each other, before a band would have to be sent out to hunt.

Jean caught a glimpse of his own mother — one of the pod leaders — talking with the other head honchos, probably already organizing sleeping shifts while yet even more mermaids did perimeter checks for any nearby predators or threats.

Feeling comfy in the center of their large and familiar group, Jean plopped himself down in a cozy patch of brown sand and curled up, pillowing his head against his forearms. He’d been migrating with his mother and this pod his entire life, so at this point he knew the route by heart, or by instinct, even. And his instinct was telling him that they had stopped to rest in between the human lands of Japan and China, which was good, because while he knew the people here were sailing around as much as the Portuguese humans, they were more focused on battling each other rather than hunting for mermaids, which had surged in recent years among the Portuguese humans and made swimming through the Atlantic ocean more difficult and stressful.

Jean let himself be lulled into closing his eyes as the many voices chatting and laughing around him melted together into a steady stream, and the homey smell of salt and mud wafted up his nostrils. High-pitched squeals and screams emanated from the meadow of eelgrass, and Jean heard several parents around him shout at their children to “stay where we can see you!” Jean sighed and shifted his dorsal spines a little, content on the prospects of a wee nap.

“...ook, see? He's a lazy lump ‘a scales. Laaaaaaaazy.” Suddenly, Connie’s voice followed by a series of childish giggles caused his ear fins to perk up. He lifted his head and sure enough, Connie was grinning at a group of fifteen or so kids (that was half the kids in their pod. They were a band of seventy mermaids in total) who were sitting in the eelgrass and weaving their little fingers into it, as Connie floated just above them.

“You gossipin’ about me, Connie?” Jean snarked, smirking a little as some of the kids gasped and went “ooooooooh”.

Ever the theatrical comedian, Connie slapped both his webbed hands over his heart and cried, “What? Little ‘ol me? I'd _never_!”

More high-pitched laughter from the kids, and one of the younger ones reached up from the seaweed to bat at the end of Connie’s brightly colored tail. “Ain't nuthin but the truth comin’ outta _my_ mouth.” Connie drawled, adorning a goofy accent.

“That so? ‘Cause I could’a _sworn_ I heard you say somethin’ about a ‘lazy lump ‘a scales’?” Jean sassed, feeling proud that the children were equally amused by him as they were Connie.

“Like I said, nothin’ but the truth.”

This easy back-and-forth banter might’ve seemed strange to some, considering Jean and Connie were ex-boyfriends, but it wasn't to them, because they still remained very close after breaking up. It's why they broke up in the first place — they were better for each other as friends rather than lovers.

“Remind me, who was the one that fell asleep on top of a lobster burrow even after he was told to check for ‘em before laying down?”

Connie’s cheeks colored in embarrassment — his skin was light enough for the red tint to show — as the children squealed and kicked out their tails in glee, much to Connie’s dismay.

“You were whining about that pinch on your fin for _weeks_!”

“It was _one_ time!” Connie cried, holding up a single digit and stretching the flexible webbing. Jean bared his teeth in a shark-like grin as the children howled even louder.

“And I _did_ check, needle-teeth!”

“Sure ya did, plankton breath!” Jean retorted.

Saqui started pumping her tiny fists in the water and chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!” while a curly-haired boy, whose great grandparents were from the waters around the many Pacific islands, waved his hands out in front of him and shook his head with a worried expression, shouting instead, “No! No! Don't fight! No fighting!”

Saqui really was set on causing a lot of drama today, wasn't she?

Jean quickly pushed himself up from his cozy patch of sand and swam over to the rowdy bunch of kids so he could put the boy’s nerves at ease. “Don’t worry, Akeakamai, don’t worry, we’re not gonna fight.”

Saqui pouted and crossed her arms, as Akeakamai chidded both Jean and Connie on how fighting is bad and they should never, ever, ever, _ever_ fight. With amused smiles, they promised him they would never, ever, ever fight.

“You’re such a guppy.” Saqui taunted the boy, as most of the kids around them had gone from laughing to shouting “hey!”.

Jean frowned at her and sunk down so he could look her in the eye. “Watch it, small fry. If you don’t agree with someone, you just say so. You don’t call ‘em names.” Saqui brattily looked off to the side, but Jean pushed for a response. “Got it?”

“Hmph.”

Just as Jean was about to demand she apologize to Akeakamai, Connie broke in and drew all the negative attention back to his sunshiney self. “Hey, hey, did you guys know that humans _always_ go to sleep at night and _always_ wake up at daytime?”

All the children immediately brightened up at this change of tone, and there were mixed cries of “No they don’t!”, “ _Always?_ ”, “That’s so weird!”

“Yeah, isn’t it?” Connie chuckled, sinking down into the eelgrass as the kids came closer to him. The younger one that had previously been pawing at his tail crawled into his lap and silently looked up at him with wide eyes. Jean smiled a little and rubbed his nose absentmindedly as Saqui scooted away from himself and Akeakamai, and more towards Connie. The other boy always did have a way with kids.

“But… doesn’t it make more sense to just sleep when you’re tired? What does the sky have anything to do with it?” A blonde boy who looked around nine asked, wrinkling his nose in confusion. His moms had been ecstatic to find him years ago as an abandoned little bundle from somewhere near the Faroe Islands. Jean thought he was a right little smart bass.

Connie shrugged. “Dunno. That’s how they do it. Some of ‘em break their own rule, though.”

“What!?” Cried one kid, mouth in a comically wide “O” shape.

“Do they get in trooouuuble?” Grinned another, leaning in.

“Even _they_ agree that it’s dumb!” Yelled the nine-year-old boy again, clearly fed up with the disastrous ways of the humans.

The child in Connie’s lap grew bored of staring at the underside of his jaw and lowered her gaze to the seaweed. Connie nodded along with the kids. “Mhm. Humans are so weird, aren’t they?”

A chorus of “yeah!”s erupted from the kids, but Jean’s attention was focused on the quiet little girl who’d slithered out of Connie’s lap and over into his own. Honestly, he _didn’t_ like kids, why couldn’t they get that and leave him alone?

“Uh… hey, buddy.” He said awkwardly, bringing his arms around the girl as a sort of barrier so she wouldn’t go rolling off his scales. His dorsal spines were flat against the ground, as they were bendy and not very susceptible to being crushed. The child blinked up at him, her lips pressed together in a very, very judgemental pout that could see right into Jean’s soul.

“Okay…” Not really knowing what to do with her, Jean simply looked back up at Connie and acted as if the child wasn’t there. She didn’t need anything, so what else was he supposed to do? He was _not_ going to breastfeed the kid, if that’s what she was after.

“Thought you hated kids.”

That was Jean’s _other_ ex, Sasha, scaring him half to death and causing the little one in his lap to frown at his sudden lurch. With a snarl, he looked over his shoulder to find her grinning down at him, loose auburn hairs from her ponytail floating around her head. “Glad to see your hearing’s just as bad as ever.” She snarked.

“Glad to see you finally taking your hunting training seriously for once.”

They shared a momentary, icy stare-off before Sasha’s face broke out into an ear-splitting grin, and she surged forward to hug his head to her bare chest. “Aahhh, I’m just playing, you big slug!”

Jean struggled to get out of her grasp, but couldn’t hide his own mirthful laughter. The child in his lap made a tiny, angry noise at all the jostling.

“I haven’t seen you all _daaaaay_ ! Why don’t you swim in the back for once? We have _way_ more fun back there.”

She finally let go of his head and sat down next to him in the eelgrass, kicking up a small cloud of sand at her landing. Jean shook his head once she let go of it, his longer, blonde mop of hair swishing in the water. Then he looked over at her. “Tell you what, Sasha, I’ll swim in the back with you guys once we leave here, alright? The next haul, I promise.”

“Ah, well, I dunno about that.” She drawled in mock-innocence, indicating she’d heard something he hadn’t yet.

Jean sighed. “What’s the statement?”

“Overheard your ma and the other heads talking. They were considerin’ staying here for a bit longer than just for rest, since we finally made it up ‘n across the Pacific ‘n all.” She leaned back against her arms, as the reeds gently flowed over both their tails and tickled at their backs. “I mean, I’m all for it. We don’t need to be moving _all_ the time, ya know? Staying put every now and then is a good thing.”

Jean hummed in agreement as the child in his arms started squirming a bit. “Yeah, it’s nice.”

Same thing with Connie, he and Sasha had broken up simply because they viewed the other as friend rather than mate. All three of their family lines had been a part of this pod for decades and they’d grown up together to boot, so they’d always end up a close-knit trio no matter what. Jean had been born in the same place as his great great grandparents, the Bay of Biscay, while Sasha’s family reigned from the Adriatic Sea, and Connie’s from the Gulf of Aden.

Suddenly, the little girl in his lap let out a shrill cry that echoed through the waters, and halted all conversation from both Connie’s herd of kids as well as the parents lounging about. As the girl let out more ear-piercing wails, Jean looked up in a panicked hope that her parents would come dashing over and take her out of his hands, but they were nowhere to be seen.

“Shhh, shhh, shhh, no, no, it’s okay, it’s okay—” Jean tried anxiously, not liking all the eyes on him.

“Maybe— maybe she’s hungry or tired or something!” Sasha suggested as the child sobbed on.

Some of the adults swam off to go find her parents, while an older man approached them and offered to help. Eager to hand over the baby, Jean gently lifted her out of his lap and into the man’s wrinkly hands, the girl kicking her tail and flailing her fists the whole time. Jean and Sasha watched as the man tenderly took her chubby little arms and crossed them over her chest, then began to softly rock her up and down. To both of their amazement, and to the amazement of everyone else in the pod, the child stopped crying, and blinked her eyes up at the old man.

“That was— how—” Jean sputtered as Sasha’s mouth hung open, before Connie shrieked, “ _Where_ did you learn that!?”

The old man smiled kindly down at the little girl, his long eyes crinkling, before answering. “I’ve cared for many children in m’ life time. Tricks like these— you just pick ‘em up.”

The baby gurgled at him and reached up to tightly grasp the long, wiry hairs of his beard. At that moment, the child’s fathers quickly came in looking rather fretful, but calmed upon seeing their baby being softly cradled in the old man’s flabby arms. “Oh, thank goodness— we’re so sorry—”

“No need for apologies, mister.”

He handed the little girl over to one of the fathers, who cooed down at his baby. She stuck her hand up and opened and closed her fingers several times, so he brought up his own, much larger hand and tickled her belly a little.

“She wasn’t crying for long, was she?” The father who was not holding the child asked.

The old man shook his head. “Not at all, mister. It’s as m’ mother used to say: ‘takes a whole village to raise a child’.”

The adults listening in laughed lightly, then everyone turned around and went back to whatever it is they were doing before the baby had started crying.

Jean and Sasha shared an awkward look of “we’re never bringing this up again; holy carp that was embarrassing”.

“Weeeeeell, not to drastically change the subject or anything,” Sasha began, drastically changing the subject. “But they’re probably gonna send out a hunting band in a bit, so I’m gonna peace out. I know your pampered butt is gonna wanna stay here and nap rather than do fun things like catch fish.”

“Clam right, my pampered butt wants to stay here and nap. Chasing minnows around ain’t my forté.”

Sasha playfully punched him in the arm, and he punched right back, now that there wasn’t a kid in his lap to be mindful of. As the ringleader of their hunting jocks called out for anyone who wanted to hunt to circle in, Sasha patted Jean’s shoulder and then took off. “See ya in a bit.”

Jean and Connie waved as she and twenty other mermaids and mermen swam off, before Jean returned to his previous cozy patch of brown sand, curled up, and dozed off.

 

**< ><   <>< <><   <>< <><**

 

When Jean woke up, he was disoriented and grumbley for a few seconds before he realized he needed to pee.

Looking around, he saw that most of the rest of the pod was sleeping as well, though he could hear a few kids whispering to each other somewhere among them. There was a warm pressure behind his back, which turned out to be Connie pressing his own backside into Jean’s, as well as a pressure on his tail, which revealed itself to be Sasha using it as a pillow. A few mermaids were up and slowly swimming around set areas encircling the pod, obviously on their sleep shift. The closest one to him was Reiner, as far as Jean could tell from his bulky form and short-cropped blonde hair.

Yawning wide, Jean stretched out long both to work out kinks in his muscles, and to gently dislodge Connie and Sasha, before pushing himself off of his warm spot on the seafloor. As he swam past Reiner, who raised one eyebrow in question as to where he was going, Jean quickly muttered his explanation, “I gotta pee.” Reiner nodded, so Jean sluggishly paddled further away from the pod and over the eelgrass field. He went past the two giant lumps of coral, for he had the mermaid decency to not urinate right where kids would be playing once they began waking up again.

Eventually, after a few minutes of swimming over the hair-like seaweed, he got to a wide, circular patch where the eelgrass ceased to grow, and deemed it a good enough spot as he couldn't see anyone around. With a sigh, he relieved himself, and absentmindedly tilted his head back to check if it was day or night. Way, way up above the water's surface, the bright blue sky shimmered innocently, with a few large puffs of clouds from what he could see, as rays of sunlight filtered down through the water. The ocean was virtually soundless at this time, and gave him a very serene feeling as he hovered in the water.

Finishing up, he turned around to go back to the pod and sleep some more, when he heard _booms_ in the distance, over and over again. They were muted due to two hundred feet of water, but still shook the Earth enough for the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end, and the spines all the way down his back to go stiff. Those thunderous booms were, without a doubt, cannonballs, which meant Wokou pirates were near.

Jean knew there was no reason to freak out — there was no way any of the warring humans would ever be able to see him all the way down here, and he was sure the sun’s glare off the water was blinding — but he couldn't help his spike in heart rate. Alert golden eyes trained upwards intently, he watched as two large underbellies raced closer towards him, slicing up the already choppy waves even further, and causing the plant life around him to stir and sway.

Along with the onslaught of noise from cannonballs were gunfire and shouting — _so_ much shouting — which could be heard even from where Jean floated. Hell, he could _feel_ the vibrations! Or maybe he was shaking, who knows.

Logically, he knew there was _no_ way he’d be able to outswim the ships, but if he stayed directly underneath them and kept an eye out for fly-away cannonballs until they passed and went on with their bloody, human lives, he'd be fine. Fortunately, the ships were charging at an angle that wouldn't take them near the pod, so he didn't need to risk swimming back to alert everyone.

As the two ships hurtled by overhead, Jean picked the one already shadowing him and braced himself. Immediately, cannonballs began tearing down through the waters around him, trailing steaming bubbles in their wake and landing with heavy _thunks_ , causing small eruptions of sand. The noise was deafening and rattled Jean to his very core, but he stayed vigilant and kept himself in the ship’s shadow. This ship was _huge_ , holy carp.

Jean watched as the bow of the ship’s silhouette came closer. He was almost in the clear; then the humans could fuck right off and go back to fighting each other and he could sleep forever and forget all about any of this— wait, what was _that_?

Amber gaze cast upwards at the tail end of the ship, Jean spotted two, small, unidentifiable objects sinking down through the water. Curiosity getting the better of him, he swam closer to the underbelly of the boat so he could get a closer look. Nothing else had fallen into the water besides cannonballs, so what were—

Jean gasped and abruptly stopped short in the water. One of the objects was a long, handheld gun — a weapon humans used that shot out speedy, little, metal balls — but that wasn’t what upset him. The second object was a severed hand— a _hand_ — falling down past his face and leaking a grotesque amount of blood from the wrist.

He _knew_ humans were brutal with each other, cruel and sadistic and power-hungry but— this was something else. This was…

Jean shuddered, but still watched as the hand and gun slowly descended down to where he had been peacefully milling about just seconds before. The muffled sound of a gunshot rang out from somewhere on the ship behind him, but it fell upon deaf ears. Mermaid pods got into wars, too. They were usually over food or territory or someone from the opposite side committing some sort of high insult like kidnap or rape. Mermaids were just as bloody as humans, so he really shouldn’t be getting this worked up over some human’s hand, but he couldn’t help it. Jean’s pod had the luxury of only getting into such disputes only a handful of times, and before Jean was ever born, so he’d never had to see any of it. This was giving him a nauseating feeling of whiplash.

Suddenly, he heard the shouting on the ship kick up, some sort of snapping and cracking, and then a heavy _splash_ behind him. Grateful for the excuse to tear his eyes away from the hand, Jean whirled around to find a— _holy fucking carp that’s a human._

On instinct, he reeled back in fear, but the human didn’t move. It just slowly started sinking, just like the gun and hand. It was on its back from what Jean could tell, but long, black hair obscured his view of the face. Blood seeped upwards from somewhere on its head, so all of this was enough for Jean to conclude that it was probably dead and he should really get the _fuck_ out of here, but he didn’t.

He could hear a heartbeat.

Jean hesitated at first, but then with a kick of his tail, swam closer. The human was alive, which really shouldn’t be any of his business, but the thought of just leaving it in the water to slowly slip away from life felt sickeningly wrong. The ships were gone, and nobody was ever going to come back for one knocked-out person who fell into the ocean.

Muttering every curse imaginable under his breath, Jean took action. He tightly wrapped his arms around the human’s torso and under its armpits ( _holy hot fucking hell, he was_ touching _a goddamn human_ ), and with all his might, began furiously kicking upwards, but found the human was _way_ more heavy than he anticipated. Shit, shit, shit, it was all this carp the human had on its body, wasn’t it? Why did humans feel the need to put so much junk on themselves anyway?

Groaning loudly in frustration (and also anxiety), Jean let go of the human’s waist and rushed to untie all the weird-looking plating on its chest, shoulders, forearms, and two seperate areas on the legs. Ugh, legs were so fucking weird, how was he supposed to know specific names for different parts of them?

Finally, the armor began sinking down to keep the gun and hand company for all eternity, leaving the human in some white trousers, black boots, a linen shirt, and an elegant red overcoat with tails. Once again, Jean hugged the human from behind and started roughly kicking his tail. Slowly, they begin to rise, and Jean clenched his teeth in strain as he fought to keep paddling. Eventually, both their heads breached the ocean’s surface, though while Jean gasped at the weird feeling of his body quickly switching breathing functions (he didn’t stick his head above water much), the human’s head lolled forward lifelessly.

Still feeling the human’s heartbeat pumping against his own chest, stubbornly refusing to give up just yet, Jean kept himself calm as he looked around. While he’d been peeing and aimlessly gazing about, he’d seen a little rise in ground off to one direction, so with his focus on the top of the water for the first time in a long time, and the two ships long gone, Jean whipped his head around for the island he knew had to be close by. Sure enough, there was a hazy, green outline of an island not too far away, so he firmly pressed his lips together, and began hauling the human towards the island.

It was only a few minutes, surely, before he reached its northwestern side, where the dark ocean turned into light blue waves crashing up against pale, white sand. There was nothing but dense forest after the beach, with a small mountain farther in the distance. Jean’s arms and tail burned from the exertion, but he kept at it until finally, _finally_ , they were laying in the shallow recesses of water near a large, dark gray rock. Jean could count the times he’d had this much of his body above water on one hand — his whole upper body with the tail end of waves lapping over his waist and then receding even lower — but he ignored that and began struggling to prop the human up against the rock.

Once Jean had succeeded in that, he sat back and leaned on both arms, panting as he stared at the human. Its black hair was wet and stuck to its face in a way that resembled a spiderweb, and its additional human clothes (useless things) clung to its body, confirming that what he had felt while pulling the human along were, indeed, breasts. Okay, then, she was a female human.

The sun beat down on his shoulders and chest, warming him in the most unfamiliar of ways. A salty breeze went by and made the tips of his drenched hair and ear fins flutter, as well as causing some ruffling of the human’s clothing. A few seabirds shrieked and cawed from further onto the island, but didn't dare get close to the two larger creatures. Man, being above water was so weird.

Jean licked his lips and swallowed to try and ease his dry throat, but it did nothing. He wasn’t out of shape, honestly.

 _‘Alright, so… when humans fall in water, their lungs fill up with it…’_ He remembered someone telling him that humans saved other humans from this sort of scenario by pressing their hands against the drowned human’s chest and pushing over and over again until the water came out. Sounded silly to Jean, but it was that or nothing. The human’s heartbeat was still thumping in his ears.

Not wasting any more time, Jean raised his hands and pressed them firmly against the human’s chest, right in between her breasts. You were supposed to press down on the sternum, right? Yeah, that felt like bone. Jean started rhythmically pumping his hands against her chest in the hopes that the water that was undoubtedly in her lungs would soon spill out, but nothing happened aside from her being jostled from his compressing. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he was doing this wrong, wasn't he?

But just then, he heard mumbling come from the human. Pausing, he tilted his head a little closer, lest she do it again. She didn't, but after a few seconds, her eyelids began to flutter. Jean froze and watched, not knowing what else to do, as she slowly blinked her eyes open, eyebrows downturning at the bright sunlight, before she finally got them open in a dazed squint.

Mikasa’s gaze fell onto a blurry but definitely human-shaped figure before her. It took a few seconds for her eyesight to clear, and her brain to catch up, but when they did, she realized the figure was a young man with sharp, angular facial features, and skin a bit paler than hers, which was constantly under the sun. He had thin, pale pink lips that were slightly parted, and drenched, darkened hair that fell into his wide, honey colored eyes. He was topless, giving way to a lean and slender upper body, and his hands were pressed up against her chest, right in between her breasts…

_Wait._

Mikasa surged forward and tackled the man, causing him to let out a surprised cry as his arms were knocked away. She _slammed_ him face-down into the shallow water, catapulting a million little drops of clear water into the air, where they glinted like gems in the sunlight. His back heaved and he let out pained wheezes, struggling violently against her onslaught, so she quickly pressed her whole body weight on top of him, gathering both his wrists in one hand and keeping his head pinned to the ground with the other.

“ _What do you think you're doing!?_ ” Mikasa roared. She abruptly stopped when she noticed that rather than a human ear pressed against her palm, there was something… wet and wrinkled. She realized the top of a _fin_ came out from under her hand and in between two spread fingers, webbed so thinly and delicately, it was very nearly translucent.

Horrified, she reeled back and off the— the—

“Don't— don’t be scared!” The whatever-it-was yelled, as he scrambled to get upright again. His voice was scratchy, and it cracked on “don’t”. His teeth were like _needles_ , thin and dangerous.

As she rushed to sweep her wet, stringy hair out of her face, Mikasa’s eyes flew to the movement of his lower body, which she realized with even more terror, was a fish-like tail, but not resembling any species she'd ever seen.

“I wasn't trying to hurt you! I was just— you were— you were in the water— you were bleeding! And—”

Now Mikasa remembered. The fight with the captain of the Red Crane, the first mate letting loose the sail and her falling down into the ocean.

“I… I brought you here,” The… _merman_ continued, hands splayed out in front of him defensively. His fingers were long, slender and bony, and in between them was webbing just as translucent as the symmetrical ear fins on either side of his head.

This was not the mystical, otherworldly beauty she’d grown to recognize in the bedtime stories her father told her as a child, nor the ugly, ape-like ningyo her mother spoke of either. This was a _real, breathing merman_ , and although his colors were two rather bleak shades of tan and brown, the pure elegance of his figure held true to the legends.

“And I tried to— to get the water out of your lungs but you—  you woke up anyway? I— I don't know if water’s still in you… or what—”

It clicked into place.

“Mammalian Diving Reflex…” Mikasa muttered. Armin had told her about it before, how the body would instinctively block out water from entering it while unconscious.

“What?” The merman asked, bringing her attention back to him. He'd scrunched up his nose and furrowed his brow in question, and the sheer… _human-ness_ of it felt so eerie and alien. However, if what this creature before her was saying was true, then he had… saved her _life_.  

Another wave came crashing down behind them, and the chilly end of it swept by, splattering against her thighs and his tail. Forgetting that he’d asked her a question, Mikasa slowly leaned forward, towards the merman and murmured, “Thank… thank you for saving me.”

The merman blinked, turned a little pink-cheeked, then averted his gaze to the seafoam. “Oh, that— it was nothing. Nothing at all.”

He was fiddling with his hands, Mikasa noticed. Another, very human mannerism. Mikasa took the moment to stand up look around at her surroundings, quickly concluding that they must be on an island somewhere along the Ryukyu archipelago. Bringing a hand up to create shade over her eyes, she peered up at the sun, and used that to get some basic bearings of where the cardinal directions were. Then, for the first time, she realized that her plated armor was missing. She quickly adjusted her red overcoat to cover her chest, then turned to inquire about her missing armor.

“Did you—”

“Sorry, but—”

They both stopped talking, and shared a brief, awkward silence.

“You can—”

“No, you go first.” She insisted.

The merman was an alarming shade of red now, and had to tilt his head upward to look at her from where he sat in the water.

“Ah, well… sorry, but it's just— I was— you have really, uh, beautiful black hair…”

This caught Mikasa a little off guard, as a compliment was very last on the list of things she'd expected him to say. In her years of piracy, which was more or less her entire life, she’d grown used to catcalls and wolf-whistles and catcalls and the drunken “hey baby”s being thrown at her, instead of genuinely innocent compliments. How he found her straggly, ocean drowned hair beautiful was a mystery in and of itself, but she didn't let any of these thoughts show.

“Thank you.”

The merman nodded, albeit a little stiffly, causing Mikasa to momentarily forget what she was going to ask him. He was so… _human_.

“Do you know where my armor went?” She asked. She suspected he may have done something with her plating, given that she didn’t recall them falling off when she got hit in the head, and if this merman’s words held true, then he was the one who picked her up just moments later. Christ, she probably had a concussion, didn’t she?

“O—oh… um, yeah, they were weighing you down so I untied them. They’re probably still on the sea floor— I could go get them!” The merman suddenly suggested, voice growing louder at the end. Was he… trying to get on her good side? Impress her?

Mikasa smiled, as it was a kind offer. “Could you?”

He nodded, then turned back towards the ocean. It was shallow for the first few feet, so she observed him dragging himself that length with his fingers in the sand, but then his head went under, his figure disappeared, and he was gone.

Okay, now to gauge what to do.

Eren and Armin and the rest of her crew probably thought she was long dead, by now. She would’ve been, if it wasn’t for the merman. Before the Red Crane had engaged them, they’d been heading towards Nakanoshima island, where they were well-known and welcomed in the local village. Eren and Armin had most likely stayed on course, and were probably, unfortunately, beginning to mourn her, so she needed to get word out to them somehow.

Mikasa looked behind her, at the treeline and the small, distant mountain. This island couldn’t be far. Definitely not close enough for her to risk swimming it, but if she could procure herself a makeshift raft of some sort, she could probably paddle her way there.

Or maybe… she could send the merman.

 

**< ><   <>< <><   <>< <><**

 

When the merman returned with Mikasa’s drowned armor a few minutes later, she first decided to learn a bit about him before asking him to go out of his way to help her for the third time.

“What is your name, merman?” She asked, seated atop the rock. The sun was hot, she was slowly drying up, and she really wanted to go underneath a tree for some shade, but the merman couldn’t get out of the water, so she stayed on the rock.

“I’m Jean.” He smiled, ear fins flicking a bit. _That_ wasn’t very human, but she was happy to have a name for a face, and curious above all else.

Her brow furrowed. “That sounds… French?”

“Well,” Jean began, and she could _hear_ the smart-ass reply about to come out of his mouth. “I _am_ from French waters.”

She let him have his smug moment. “What is a French merman doing here?”

“We migrate.” He stated as if it were obvious.

“‘We?’”

“Yeah— the pod. We.”

The pod. Mermaids lived in pods, like dolphins or fish, and that fact made Mikasa crack a smile.

“What’s so funny?” Jean snapped. “Humans live in groups too; I’ve seen you!”

This made her chuckle even more. “You’re right. Some of us do.”

Jean still looked offended, but was at a loss as to what. Mikasa quickly diverted his attention. “How do you know Japanese?”

“Many mermaids in our pod are from all over, and speak many different languages, so it helps to learn so that you can talk, ‘n stuff. There are a few from here, so.”

Interesting. And convenient.

“Well… Jean,” She tested his name out on her tongue. “May I ask another favor from you?”

Jean perked up. “A-absolutely! What is it?”

“My crew most likely thinks I am dead. I need to get a message out to them that I am not, and where I am, so they can come get me. This is more than just fetching armor, and you’ve already done a lot for me, so I will not hold it against you if you refu—”

“How will I know which ship is yours?”

Mikasa blinked, surprised. He was actually going to do it?

“Thank— thank you, so much.” She breathed. “It looks like most other ships in these waters— red and huge— but there are silvery paintings of mermaids on the body— you can’t miss it.”

Jean’s eyebrows shot up. “Paintings… of mermaids? On your ship?”

Mikasa nodded, unsure of where he was going. He then shook his head with a lazy grin. “Doubt they’re very accurate, but this almost seems ironic, don’t you think?”

She nodded, allowing a small, smirk of her own to show. “When’s the soonest you can leave?”

His smile fell. “Oh… oh shit!” His head whirrled around to peer out at the waves, still lapping at the sand and glinting off of the winter sun.

“What is it?” Mikasa asked, suddenly worried.

“I’ve been gone a while! Someone might’ve start looking for—” Jean returned his gaze to her. “I can go tomorrow, once the pod’s awake again. I can sneak off— yeah— Sasha and Connie would cover for me!”

Now, who were Sasha and Connie, Mikasa wondered.

“I’ll go tomorrow,” Jean told her again. “Let me go back to my pod so they don’t get suspicious, okay?”

She was a little dazed, but agreed. “Thank you so much for everything you’re doing for me.”

Jean smiled wide, cheeks growing pink, then he returned to the ocean. Mikasa watched until he was completely out of sight, then sighed. She might as well set up a shelter for herself in the meantime. With a grunt, she got up off the rock, and trudged into the forest.

 

**< ><   <>< <><   <>< <><**

 

“Took you long enough.” Was the first thing Reiner greeted Jean with when he came barreling back towards the pod. “ ‘I just need to pee’ my vent. Does it really take you that long to whack it?”

Realizing what Reiner was suggesting, Jean’s face turned bright red in an instant, and he began sputtering. “I wasn’t— I didn’t— Reiner, what the fuck! It doesn’t take me—”

Reiner laughed, loud and booming, and waved Jean off. “Don’t sweat it, bro. I won’t tell anyone.”

Still embarrassed and enraged beyond belief, Jean ignored Reiner’s huge fucking grin, and stormed back to his now-cool spot in the sand, in between Connie and Sasha, and tried to go back to sleep. Tomorrow, he’d get Sasha and Connie to cover for him while he swam off to find Mikasa’s ship. He’d need as much energy as possible for that, if he really intended on trying to appease her. Why was he so inclined to please her? Oh well.

Slowly, his eyes drifted shut, and he slipped away from consciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, if you have any suggestions, please say so in the comments!


End file.
